who came up with spacetime

[gib65]

Who was the first one to propose that time was a fourth dimension that complimented the three dimensions of space, thereby establishing the concept of spacetime. The name "Lorenz" comes to mind. Is this right?

[[Tycho?]]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

 

Or look it up somewhere else. Eintein played an important role since its through relativity that we have spacetime, not sure if he coined the term though.

[Royston]

I'm pretty sure Hermann Minkowski (one of Einsteins teachers) came up with the idea of unifying space and time...which helped general relativity to be realised. The idea stemmed from Lorentz geometry.

[□h=-16πT]

I'm pretty sure Hermann Minkowski (one of Einsteins teachers) came up with the idea of unifying space and time...which helped general relativity to be realised. The idea stemmed from Lorentz geometry.

 

Yeah, I think he did. I can't be bothered to get the 1905 paper by Einstein out and check, but I'm pretty sure H. Minkowski introduced the space-time interval (hence the Minkowski interval) and the geometry of SR in 1906 (or '07).

 

The main bulk of "On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" explained the Michelson-Morely experiment concisely and postulating the Lorentz invariance of c supported by a mathematical derivation from the Maxwell equations.

 

Who was the first one to propose that time was a fourth dimension that complimented the three dimensions of space, thereby establishing the concept of spacetime. The name "Lorenz" comes to mind. Is this right?

 

Introducing time as an additional property of the universe together with space by itself is nothing special and does not constitute a definition of space-time really. The important result is the invariance of the space-time interval, by themselves spatial and temporal intervals are relative to the observer, whereas an interval in space-time is frame independant. I don't know if you already knew this.

 

Lorenz is the name of a prominant guy in weather models and non-linear dynamics (chaos theory). Lorentz is the guy you're after; he was the dude that, subsequent to the MM experiment and prior to the '05 paper on SR, proposed length contraction and time dilation to explain the results. However his idea was seen merely as a mathematical trick to explain the "negative" results. He conducted other work into the subject as well.

[airkyd]

and yet Einstien still forgot to account for space time into his equations and did realise . it was teh "biggest mistake f his life" lol.

[swansont]

and yet Einstien still forgot to account for space time into his equations and did realise . it was teh "biggest mistake f his life" lol.

 

I thought that was the cosmological constant.

[□h=-16πT]

and yet Einstien still forgot to account for space time into his equations and did realise . it was teh "biggest mistake f his life" lol.

 

Cosmological constant

[KaiduOrkhon]

WHO CAME UP WITH 'Space-Time'?

 

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics and therein lies their strength.

They are radical.

Henceforth, space by itself and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." - Hermann Minkowski, 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists & Physicists, 1908.

 

"Matter and space are seen to be inseperable and interdependent parts of a single whole." - Fritjov Capra, THE TAO OF PHYSICS, p. 208

 

"According to the physicist-philosopher Ernst Mach... material objects not only determine the structure of the surrounding space, but are in turn influenced by their environment in an essential way."

- Fritjov Capra, THE TAO OF PHYSICS, p. 209

 

H.A. Lorentz' equations (at issue in the present thread's context) preceded Einstein's unprecedented innovations of them. To make a longer story shorter, the cogent equations of H.A. Lorentz were - prior to Einstein's unexpected innovation - exclusively applicable to 'static particles'.

 

Einstein successfully applied them to describe field phenomena, which (among several other mixed observations, proofs and discoveries emerging in the time window of the turn of the 19th to 20th century) contributed to the ongoing dilemma of (Maxwell's initiated) elemental continuity and (Planck's initiated) elemental discontinuity (generally considered to be antithetical to one another; which ain't necessarily so - more about that conceivably false, misunderstood dichotomization, later), in the micro and macrocosmic foundations of physics...

What inspired Sir Arthur Eddington to subsequently, comment (paraphrased):

"Monday thru Wednesday we'll call them (the ultimate microcomic constituents of everything, large and small) 'particles', Thursday thru Friday we'll call them 'waves', and, on weekends, we'll call them 'waveicles'.

- K. B. Robertson

Thank you for reading this missive.